Idle Thumbs 9: The Confestabaloo

[Chris]

This one's a little long and a little unusual!

Plus, check out the temporary splash page for our upcoming Games of the Year at GOTY.cx

"Our co-hosts sedated themselves a bit this week in deference to special guest Chuck Jordan, Telltale designer and veteran of Grim Fandango and Curse of Monkey Island. Amidst discussions of Disneyland and ARG-based PR, we start to plan for Games of the Year and indulge in some pomposity about Game Narrative."

Games discussed: Resident Evil 5, Treasure Troves, Army of Two, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mr. Payback

iTunes

RSS

http://www.idlethumbs.net/

[Scrobbs]

Because I've been a bit slack in the last week or so, I now get two Thumbs podcasts in one day! Woo! It's like forgetting about your chocolate advent calendar for a a couple of days and getting a mound of treats at once.

[SignorSuperdouche]

An all out homoerotic sequel to Army of Two would be awesome.

Army of Tutu.

[pancake humper]

Holy shit the subtle goatse at the bottom of that invitation is amazing. It even has the ring.

[Marek]

My head exploded at around 18:30.

Love,

Marek Bronstring

[oF1KiENRIShAzllx77rL]

Yea twilight princess may be a little hard. Theres a green dot on the floor on the lane that you can walk behind the boss in. The gas is only on the closest lane. Basically you ride a tv right to the boss and then just walk around it.

Sad to hear nobody else entered, I updated the level to try and stay competitive with a 3rd week of time, I didn't even get much time the first two weeks myself.

If you need to get in touch with me pm me on the forums and I'll send you any information you need. Thanks for another great podcast!

[n0wak]

I imagine that the reason the site is so sloooow is because you have just posted this and you're getting hammered. On the one hand, it's slow On the other, this does mean you're getting more popular

[elmuerte]

so... will 2009 be the gotsy.cx ?

[Marek]

There's so many domains pointing to Idle Thumbs that it's created an inverse feedback loop sucking up all web bandwidths in its wake.

Erm actually, yes, it's probably the fact that all of Thumb/Shack/NeoGAF/Gaming blogosphere are hammering the server with mp3 download requests. We'll look at some better ways to handle this demand.

[toblix]

If only someone had proposed using BitTorrent in one of the earlier threads...

[Marek]

Good idea in theory but I don't think that's how most people want to have a podcast delivered to them? Most people just want a feed with the mp3, not a .torrent with an mp3 that then needs to be manually transfered to whatever software people use to play podcasts or load them onto an mp3 player...

[elmuerte]

amazon's s3 is a good solution for things like thing (i.e. hosting flat files), sure it costs some money, but so does hosting it yourself.

[Marek]

Amazon's web services are exactly what's being looked at right now by Jake. Thanks for the suggestion though, it's a good one.

[Jake]

Yeah, uploading stuff now. Next step is to test, and then to figure out how to switch the whole feed over without peoples clients going apeshit and re-downloading everything.

[n0wak]

Yeah, I was going to suggest the same thing. S3 is something that you'd use, like, 2% of the time anyway -- the first few hours after posting a weblog when everyone is grabbing it. A few hours later (like now) I imagine that the demand is far more manageable. And since you only pay S3 for what you use, it works out. Er, uh, video gameS.

BTW, that ARG wifi network DS game thing that was mentioned? That similar idea was used in MGS: Portable Ops. You get generated characters based on the network that you are near to. Regardless though, it's kind of a glitchy, unpredictable mechanic very much akin to Monster Rancher and the old Barcode Battlers. Apparently, the Barcode Battlers increased demand for some particular grocery products because their barcodes created particularly powerful creatures.

[Agrona]

Treasure Troves sounds interesting. Do they have a webpage or anything? My google fu is weak. All I can find is Chris' article about it.

[miffy495]

Also saddened to hear about the lack of entries. Having to learn how to use the creation tools during my exams was what held me back from entering. Hoping to actually make the level sooner or later. I'll post a link whenever that happens. Fear the in-jokes will be rather outdated by then. The whole thing centered around finding some glue to repair Remo's chair...

[Mawryk]

Yay, I've finally heard my name butchered on a podcast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UziUhf1ukw

for all who want to enjoy the fun of Shaq rapping... and about 1:00 in to get to the reason for my suggested ultraBoost flavor.

Incidentally, after hearing the other entries, I am completely unworthy of even being mentioned.

[Roderick]

Hooray! My Ultraboost entry was met with deafening, awkward silence! Mission accomplished!

Good podcast, folks! Loved the choose your own adventure bit at the end. For, a winner is meme, go to...

[Jake]

Haha, all those ultraboost entries were good for various reasons. I was pleased that we got so many entries.

[Jesusrocksmysocks]

To say that there aren't any games that are the equivalent of literature is incorrect. There are several recent example of game that can challenge adults the same was a classic piece of written work do.

URL="http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208"][/url]

Great podcast by the ways guys. I found it thanks to Gaf and so far its the only cast about video games I can stand to listen to since GFW Radio ended. Keep up the good work.

[miffy495]

Oh man, I would totally buy Uncanny Valley Cream Soda.

[n0wak]

  Jesusrocksmysocks said:

To say that there aren't any games that are the equivalent of literature is incorrect. There are several recent example of game that can challenge adults the same was a classic piece of written work do.

Hey, I love Jason Rohrer too but I think, if anything, his games are more like "poems" and less like "literature." I know that's a rather pedantic distinction, but I think it's a good one.

[Chris]

  Jesusrocksmysocks said:

To say that there aren't any games that are the equivalent of literature is incorrect. There are several recent example of game that can challenge adults the same was a classic piece of written work do.

URL="http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208"][/url]

Great podcast by the ways guys. I found it thanks to Gaf and so far its the only cast about video games I can stand to listen to since GFW Radio ended. Keep up the good work.

It's a fair point, and Passage is indeed awesome. There is sort of a weird gulf though between games like Passage, and the full-scale game industry--less of a continuum like you see in other forms. But yeah I was probably a bit hasty in my diatribe.

And thanks!

[Noyb]

I love Passage and Gravitation, but it does make sense to think of them more as tone poems as n0wak says. Short, to the point, conveying complex ideas within a short form.

The Marriage on the other hand annoyed so much with its arbitrary symbolism and lengthy explanation that I made a random abstract art game generator mocking it earlier this year.